The Young Generation Losers and Winners

CENTENAR MIRCEA ELIADE ŞI MIHAIL SEBASTIAN

THE YOUNG GENERATION AND ITS VULNERABLE POSITION - LOSERS AND WINNERS -

Assistant lecturer MARA MAGDA MAFTEI, Ph.D. Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest

The Young Generation had its own mission. We cannot say it managed to fulfill it. Most of its representatives died in the Romanian communist prisons, some of them ended up as losers, in spite of their key role in the ‘30s and in spite of their intelligence. We know for sure the names of Cioran, Eliade, Ionescu. But how did they manage to leave the country, to turn themselves into important "imported writers"? What did it happen to their colleagues? Why didn't they have the same chance? Who is to be blamed for?

Romanians are quite familiarized with the names of Cioran, Eliade, Ionescu, Noica, four members of the famous “young generation”, the most cultural productive and vigorous generation in our history; even if not the only one, this generation meant the very moment when Romania finally managed to advertise itself internationally, despite many previous trials. Since then, many researchers are disputing over the choice made back, at that time, by those who were to become “imported writers”, meaning Cioran, Eliade, Ionescu. The Young generation included many names, from different arts, deeply involved in politics and social movements. I would say no other generation had the same awareness as regarding the importance of making the Romanian culture known worldwide and refusing to submit the national values to international standards, but to make them popular the way they are, because of what they are. Mircea Eliade, Mircea Vulcanescu, Paul Sterian, Dan Botta, Emil Cioran, Constantin Noica, Mihail Polihroniade, Mihail Sebastian, Paul Comarnescu, Ionel Jianu, Petre Ţutea, Traian Herseni, Paul Costin Deleanu, Vasile Băncilă, Arşavir and Haig Acterian, Eugen Ionescu, Sandu Tudor, Nicolae Roşu and many others, migrating from the right to the left, or from the right-centered to the left-centered political parties, deeply interested in all cultural events, organized in different associations, initiating various investigations in newspapers, highly caught up in publicist activities. Most of those names (the list not being yet completed) say nothing, but to researchers. Even if they had good and promising careers at the time back then, they did not manage to survive to both political pressure and changes, they died in communist prisons, some preferred the anonymity instead of the compromise, a few managed to leave the country and turn themselves into “imported writers”, half Romanians, half French or Americans, usually denying their earlier adhesion during their Romanian career to the Iron Guard and to all the left intrusions which were meant to modernize the country. Even if they all meant something as a group, only few of them succeeded in turning themselves into winners, according to all social standards; the others failed, from the same standards’ point of view; they also failed when not being able to accomplish their mission, when being ignored, condemned and wrongly justified. This short paper does not intend to present a very exhaustive list or accomplishments, of pros and cons of this generation, just a short view of what used to be this generation, of some of its members, most still unknown to the common reader. The Young Generation – losers The Young Generation was officially made up in 1927, once Mircea Eliade published Itinerariul spiritual, in 12 parts, all edited in Cuvântul, the newspaper run by the professor and animator of this generation, Nae Ionescu, the program announcing the most important generation, which considered itself as being the first Romanian generation not conditioned by a historic 55 ANNALES UNIVERSITATIS APULENSIS. SERIES PHILOLOGICA

objective to be accomplished, free to criticize rationality and to embrace life experiences, personal adventure, authenticity. Mircea Eliade was always considered to be the head of this generation, being shortly replaced, when leaving with a scholarship for India, by Petru Comarnescu, the one who founded in 1932 the Criterion group, which used to organize conferences on Lenin’s personality, Freud, Gide, Mussolini, easily mixing up political and cultural aspects within the frameworks of new social developments. Even if deeply involved in the reformations of the interwar period, Petru Comarnescu never enrolled himself effectively in the Iron Guard; also, despite him admiring, up to a point, the very dynamic and controversial personality of Nae Ionescu, he never turned himself into a zealous follower of the professor. His mission was to take the human experience as the most solid way of getting to the supreme truth, mission which would be better expressed through novel writing or philosophical essays rather then poetry. Petru Comarnescu distinguishes himself by the art critique with an esthetic-philosophical impact and by thousands of published articles. He was the most prolific publicist out of his entire generation, almost ten volumes of published articles are to be found within the Romanian Academy Library, and many articles still remained unpublished. He was well regarded between wars, managing to conclude a Ph.D. in America, his thesis being named Kalokagathon, even if this accomplishment did not bring him the success he wanted when back in Romania, but only enviousness and misfortune. In a very gloomy world, Comarnescu managed to surpass the Cartesian doubt and he became skeptical. He was more interested in explaining himself the limits of knowledge, of human capacity to receive and infer the truth, the human being’s philosophy, his/her experiences seemed to be more creative and passionate then any other social upsurge. He had a philosophical and aesthetic vision over the world. His ambition was to create a true and complete picture of his generation, something which he managed to do, when writing his journal, Pagini de Jurnal, published by Noul Orfeu, in 2003, in 3 volumes, volume I including 1923-1947, volume II 1948-1961, volume III 1962-1968. As regarding his political attitude, this one has always been a rationalist and humanistic one. He cooperated with both Stânga and Dreapta, as an intellectual only, both reviews never utterly expressing his opinions. The generation was famous for the disputes between its members, often fighting themselves, but in the end still good friends, never taking too seriously especially the polemics in the newspapers of the time. The most famous polemics are the ones between Mircea Eliade and George Racoveanu on the dispute over M. Sebastian’s novel De 2000 de ani, the one between Mircea Vulcănescu and Petru Comarnescu, between Paul Sterian and Ionel Jianu; then the polemics due to the frequent migration of the members from various newspapers, for example the group, at one moment, of Petre Pandrea, Petre Ţuţea, Nicolae Tatu writing at Stânga, Axa, Dreapta, Credinţa of Sandu Tudor, Azi which also migrates towards the left and where Vulcănescu, Petre Comarnescu, Paul Sterian, P. Manoliu, I. Calugaru were writing. As Petru Comarnescu, Mircea Vulcănescu also never enrolled himself properly in the Iron Guard. He sympathized with professor Nae Ionescu’s ideas, but up to a point. Mircea Vulcănescu is considered to be the only one who completely and in detail registered his generation phenomenon in so many articles (many of them including the name generation within the title), in very well documented papers (to see Vulcănescu, Tânăra generaţie, 2004). Mircea Vulcănescu was killed by the communists because he was a member of the Antonescu’s government as minister of finance; as different from Cioran, famous for always pointing to the very weak parts of his country, never admitting himself to be fully Romanian, Vulcănescu always engrossed in researching and depicting the Romanian dimensions, based on the very popular conceptions, by analyzing the language, the symbols, from the position of a moderate autochthonism, very unlike to Cioran’s obsession towards modernism. In 1943, Vulcănescu wrote Dimensiunea românească a existenţei, as a counterpart to Schimbarea la faţă a României; when receiving a volume, Cioran summarizes again his opinion as regarding Vulcănescu’s writing: “in it was not meant to be I saw the abstract, the formula, the sign of our destiny”. Vulcănescu’s essay identifies the Romanian incapacity to fully accept and pay attention to reality, which, he wrote, does not have a negative connotation, the absence of categorical negation, the absence of the need to

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dominate, the lack of fear in front of death. It is known that one of the main concepts around which the young generation grouped itself was the one of personal experience. Mircea Vulcănescu detects, in the Romania between wars, the empiric meaning of life, trying in the same time to impose its own possible decoding of reality. When referring to another feature of the young generation, which is the one of spirituality, Mircea Vulcănescu stands for a kind of spirituality understood in the traditionalist and orthodox meaning, the same as Nae Ionescu and Nichifor Crainic. He draws the attention that Nae Ionescu, and following him the whole generation, confuses the nation with the nationality, a metaphysic notion, an irreducible, spiritual quality. The nation may not submit itself to its idea of spirituality, may not live or accomplish itself. All the things may have their own meaning; if not, they can make one, because the whole Romanian destiny is imagined by him in a very enlightened landscape. Mircea Vulcănescu says that the Romanian is perfectly capable of integrating himself/herself in the social group, in the nation, the people it belongs to, in the history, in the Universe. He is also taking part in the process of becoming one of the afore-mentioned categories. A vision which is very different from the destructive and pessimistic one always displayed by Cioran. In 1933 there started the migration of the young generation to the Iron Guard, its political enrollment; besides Mircea Vulcănescu, Mihail Sebastian, Petru Comarnescu, H. H. Stahl, Bucur Tincu, all the members of this generation migrated either to the left, or to the right. Bucur Tincu (friend of E. Cioran ever since his childhood) wrote in 1938 Apărarea civilizaţiei, where he made a kind of critical analysis of Schimbarea la faţă, opposing himself to all the negative connotations brought about by Cioran in his famous book, also to the terms as nation/people, culture/civilization, considered as opposites by E. Cioran. He put forward a rationalist, democratic, open-minded position. The same did Mircea Vulcănescu, and later on Constantin Noica, but by formalizing a point of view and making it global, quite opposed to the one advertised by E. Cioran, both very akin to the Romanian possibility to stand for a historic chance due to its traditional values and most inner mentalities, even if sometimes peasant, but peasantry may turn itself into a feature to be preserved and exploited. Mihail Sebastain was neither an opponent nor an enthusiastic of the Iron Guard; he took the defense of Nae Ionescu, when the professor, who wrote the preface to his novel De 2000 de ani, was accused of anti-Semitism; Nae Ionescu collected Mihail Sebastian from a high school in Brăila, sent him to study in Paris; later on Sebastian will set himself quite against his professor due to the latter’s fascination for the Iron Guard. To the extreme right migrated (for the exact left and right migrations see Petreu, 2004): - Mihail Polihroniade, the first who really enrolled in the Iron Guard, as soon as the mentor of the generation Nae Ionescu, embraced this political orientation. He was also the first to be killed when the official members of the Iron Guard were executed. - Haig Acterian, Alex. Tell, one of the leaders of the Criterion, then P. Ţuţea, a fanatic communist till 1933, then fervent legionnaire, Arşavir Acterian, Dan Botta, Marietta Sadova, P. P. Panaitescu, Traian Herseni, the sociologic critic of the period. To the extreme left migrated: - Belu Zilber, the only communist among the group, as he was named by Mircea Eliade - Petre Pandrea, who was a student of Nae Ionescu at the beginning of the professor’s career, fervent left supporter in his first stage, when he signed Manifestul Crinului Alb, a manifest where he mocked at the old generation considering it unable of producing valuable cultural products; in this manifest he showed himself on nationalist positions; after 1931 he evolves towards the extreme communist left. Miron Radu Paraschivescu, Alexandru Sahia, Nicolae Tatu (high school mate of E. Cioran), Stefan Beldie, Anton Dumitrescu. There are many names that formed together the famous interwar generation; most of them are very present in all literary books, but not according to the importance they had during those times, not according to their devotion and hopes. Who is to be blamed for?

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Some died in prisons, a few did not have the possibility to leave the country, some left the country but they did not manage to convince the West they really deserved a literary career, even if they all left Romania determined to continue what they had started in their own country. Maybe their determination was not strong enough. Some were killed by the communist because of their previous political adhesion. The system or the history is to be blamed for. Cioran may have been right and the individual borne in a Lilliputian country does not have another choice if he wants to accomplish his/her destiny at a macro level, but to emigrate. Besides Cioran, Eliade, Ionescu, and Noica, Ţuţea only the researchers have heard about different members of the young generation. Noica insisted until the end of his life to safely live within the Romanian boards then living in an outer and more controversial space. The rest are not losers, in the very proper sense, but they did not have the chance to enjoy the fame their colleagues benefited from and the courage to assert themselves among non-natives, the courage to forget what they have been or done. The Young Generation - the winners Constantin Noica is for sure one of the names, at least, we, Romanians, do not have the tendency to forget it. The foreigners, especially the French praise too much Petre Ţuţea, who, they say, created a philosophical system; Romanians cannot admit it, even if sometimes they place Ţuţea before Noica, because of some historical tricks, because of both destiny and social contexts who make some people more famous then others without any accurate base. Ţuţea did not play a key role in his generation, he migrated from one extreme to another, he did not ever register completely any phenomenon, only speculating some ideas, and speculating them within the global whims of the most important historic decision-makers. Also, as different from E. Cioran, who operates with philosophical concepts already established, Noica created a philosophical system, the same as Vasile Conta, C. R. Motru, L. Blaga. There are three stages in his career: the first one from his debut when publishing Mathesis sau bucuriile simple till 1940, period when he was Kantian, then the second stage form 1940 till 1958 when he praised Nae Ionescu (to see Schiţă pentru istoria lui Cum e cu putinţă ceva nou dedicated to Nae Ionescu), when getting closer to Nae Ionescu meant getting closer to Plato, Hegel, Heidegger; it was the moment when he thought of founding a philosophical school the same as Nae Ionescu; nowadays we all know that he did not succeed in. Then during the third stage, from 1958 till 1964, when he was in prison and wrote, then published in 1968 Douăzeci si şapte de trepte ale realului; it was the moment when he suddenly discovered that Goethe, whom he had liked so much, was no longer philosophical, and he turned towards the Romanian world, continuing somehow the direction opened by Vulcănescu when insisting on the cultivation of the Romanian values; the new spirituality, which was a key element of the young generation, (Petru Comarnescu even organizing an investigation in Tiparniţa literară in 1928 entitled Noua spiritualitate), now had to be build taking into account the Romanian coordinations, the religious coordinations, without any major transformation to adjust them to the international standards. When Noica got out of prison, he indulged himself in studying the Romanian language, the Romanian sentiment of being (to see Devenirea întru fiinţă). Even at the beginning, Noica kept himself apart from Nae Ionescu, preferring the lecturers of P. P. Negulescu, and apart from legionnaire inclinations, but he properly enrolled himself in the Iron Guard in 1938, being firmly against democracy, trend to which he remained akin to till the end of his life, never taking back his earlier enthusiasm, as opposed to Cioran or Eliade. Between wars, Noica published many articles supporting the Iron Guard, accusing the previous generation (see the case of Iorga) of being unable to control and solve the problems the country were confronting with back then. In Mathesis sau bucuriile simple, he urged people to give up history, as an alert member of the generation he was brought up in. Noica was also fascinated by the legionnaire idea of the need to turn the individual into a perfect one, giving total credit to Codreanu who argued that the legionnaires were up to take over the sins of their nation (to see Noica’s article Cumplita lor călătorie, 12 September 1940). He was also fascinated by the legionnaire idea of the new man, a feature typical to the new political movement. Also, death (to see the article Spiritualitate şi moarte) was, according to Noica a novelty

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factor. He engrossed in all the legionnaire features, he always rejected democracy, as considering it unable to solve the political and social issues the Romanians were confronting themselves with between wars and still after. Eugen Ionescu, who also formed himself as a writer between wars, was one of the few who did not believe in either the Iron Guard, nor was he fascinated by the impressive personality of Nae Ionescu, the professor of the generation. He even characterized the process of his colleagues eagerly falling in love with Nae Ionescu “rinocerizare”, and the main responsible for triggering this was, obviously, Nae Ionescu. He started as one of the very member of his generation, by publishing Nu, in the same manner and the same time as Cioran’s Schimbarea la faţă a României, condemning the previous generation of being irresponsible and not enough intelligent. After this moment, he refused to take part in the prolific publicist left and right-oriented activities, but to criticize his colleagues’ stupidity when blinded by the negative effects of their proper or half-declared adhesion or, in some cases enrollment. He was not obsessed with the Romanians’ incapacity to make history, but with his own urgency to leave the country and become famous. In France, he will be worried about his plays not getting enough attention, always tired and upset at the possibility of suddenly being less famous then he used to be and always condemning his friends. He was always accusing, never having the courage to put forward a pertinent opinion of his own. When in France, in September 1945, he wrote a letter to Tudor Vianu, where he praised himself for not having been a fascist, reproving Cioran, Eliade, Noica, Vulcănescu, Haig Acterian, Polihroniade for being the victims of Nae Ionescu. He especially had something against Eliade, whom he considered responsible, alongside with Nae Ionescu, for bringing the legionnaires into the country. He also blamed Eliade, back in the interwar period, for cooperating with the left because of him publishing ten articles in Azi, a review run by Zaharia Stancu. Eugen Ionescu also spoke badly of Costin Deleanu, Horia Stamatu, Amzăr, emigrants as Cioran and Eliade, forgetting to mention himself among them. Also, Paul Sterian, Dan Botta, Petru Manoliu were responsible for destroying what could have been, he wrote, a promising generation. Only Petru Comarnescu was still credited for his ability to keep himself apart from the political movements of his generation. Mircea Eliade was for sure the leader of this generation, the person who did not know what failure was, and never admitted the possibility to fail. By far, the intellectual, the hard working, the ambitious, but also the admirer of both Nae Ionescu and the Iron Guard, perhaps because of Nae Ionescu again. When he published in 1927 Itinerariul spiritual in Cuvântul, he then put forward the concept of the young generation and the moment when it was formed, as a distinct group. He promptly answered the publicist attacks of Şerban Cioculescu and a series of articles between those two and not only followed in the press. In November 1935 Mircea Eliade enrolled in the Iron Guard, a decision that, when in the West, he would regret it and try to disguise and avoid any arguments related to it. But he published so many articles proving his enchantment as regarding the Iron Guard, engrossed in all the features put forth by this political movement. When he practically founded the new generation, he saw it as organizing a spiritual revolution, denying any connections with the political aspects. In 1934, he let himself seduced by the Iron Guard’s idea of promising to spiritually revolutionize the country, and in 1937 Eliade praised the political movement for trying to create the new individual and impose him/her on the political arena. He also honored the heroic death in Noua aristocraţie legionară; in time, he realized it could not be a spiritual movement, but he let himself, as Cioran, fascinated by the irrational character of the movement. Eliade, while living in Romania was always defending his professor, Nae Ionescu; even when emigrated in the West he did not start blaming Nae Ionescu for dragging the generation into the Iron Guard, as Cioran or Ionescu did (probably out of envy when mentioning Ionescu, perfectly capable of). Eliade praised Nae Ionescu for introducing in the Romanian philosophy, the necessity to take into account personal experience, adventure, orthodoxy, authenticity, without being forced to organize them all in a system, the same as C. R. Motru and others had done. The system was not necessary to explain the problems of the human being. This statement can be taken as a centre point for all the generation who created somehow within the boundaries of Nae Ionescu’s lessons and predictions. Emil Cioran enrolled

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himself in the Iron Guard in November 1933. When he arrived in Germany in 1933, Cioran became enthusiastic about the German order, he militated for the involvement of the youngsters in politics, he sent articles to different reviews in the country, showing its revolutionary sentiment (to see România în faţa stăinătăţii, Impresii din Munchen. Hitler in conştiinţa germană, Revolta sătuilor). When back in the country he continued publishing articles which displayed the same kind of admiration; for example in În preajma dictaturii, he showed that the Iron Guard favored the heroic death, an aim which was turned by Cioran into a famous objective of his philosophical discourse. But he admired the movement for its irrationality, never considering it a spiritual one. As apart from his generation, Cioran regarded liberalism as to be the saving solution for Romania, writing that Romania owed everything it had to the liberals, but he somehow motivated his esteem for nationalism by his interest in his country that could not be but revolutionary at that time, somehow in congruence with the European political context. After 1937, Cioran became even more involved in the political phenomenon; in Renunţarea la libertate he asked “for the dictatorship to come”, even if in 1937 he suddenly turned out to be engrossed in a religious crisis when writing Lacrimi şi sfinţi. In November 1937, he left for Paris, with a scholarship offered by the French Institute in Bucharest; in the autumn of 1940 he came back, when the Iron Guard was running the country and Romania was a national-legionary state, moment when he delivered a conference entitled Profilul interior al căpitanului at Radio Bucharest. He had also sent a volume of Schimbarea la faţă a României to Codreanu, hoping to please him, but Codreanu did not see in the book the revolutionary aspects he was looking for. From February 1941, when Cioran left Romania forever and until his death, he kept denying all his between wars political adhesions, accusing Nae Ionescu in Ţara mea for dragging the whole generation into politics. He would also modify parts of Schimbarea la faţă a României, especially those referring to his considerations to Jews and Hungarians. Even if only some of those forming the young generation really managed to accomplish their own destiny, it does not mean that the rest does not deserve mentioning. The few used the incentive given by the generation to promote their own ideas and their own careers, all remaining indebted to the main features inculcated to them by Nae Ionescu, or by what the generation as a group represented. Indeed, the generation did not manage to impose itself as such, but it did something fabulous and it did it for the first time (nowadays the trial still not being equalized): it succeeded in accomplishing its most ardent incentive i.e. to make the national culture known all over the world, to make it popular; the names of Eliade, Cioran, Ionescu are, in this case, the best example of having reached the target.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Comarnescu, Petru. Pagini de Jurnal. Editura Noul Orfeu, Bucureşti, 2003 2. Petreu, Marta. Un trecut deocheat sau Schimbarea la faţă a României. Editura Institutului Cultural Român, Bucureşti, 2004 3. Vulcănescu, Mircea. Tânăra generaţie. Editura Compania, Bucureşti, 2004